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The Rest of the Story

Okay, here’s the mystery and how it was solved. This took place over the course of several years.

While researching my mother’s side of the family, I had determined that her great-grandma Swadener was Georgia Stoneburner Fritz of Spokane, Washington. Her parents were born and married in Ohio, the family originated in Germany. In any case, they moved to Indiana, Illinois, spent many years in Iowa and then moved to Spokane, Washington.

I have yet to find a marriage record and am assuming the marriage to Daniel Fritz was in Nachusa, Illinois. Finding Georgia Stoneburner’s parents proved to be difficult as all I could find was the 1870 census with her living with a family in Franklin Grove, China Township, Illinois. There was a Nellie Stoneburner also living in China Township with a different family. There was a John Stoneburner living elsewhere in the county. I assumed that he was their father as he most likely would be living close by.

Keep in mind that I am not the kind of researcher that mails out requests for records. I have done that a couple of times, but have found that with the latest technology many records are finding their way on line. So in my genealogical searching I stumbled across the Washington State Digital Archives http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/. I had searched for several records and added new information on aunts and uncles. At some point it occurred to me to search for records for Georgia Fritz. That was when I hit pay dirt.

There was a record for a marriage of a Georgia Fritz to a Henry Schneider. A second marriage for Georgia. The digital record confirmed her father’s name, John Stoneburner. I was disappointed. The mother’s name was blank. Okay, so I had discovered a second marriage. What I really needed was her mother’s name to confirm her relationship to Nellie.

Let’s take a step back. About 12 years ago, I had contacted another Stoneburner researcher in Illinois. She is related to Nellie Stoneburner and her records showed that Nellie’s parents were John Stoneburner and Sarah Herrick. I had e-mailed her the only photo I have of Georgia and she stated that her sister looked eerily like her. So we both believed that ultimately we would find that there was a relationship. But we had to prove it.

Last week I was working on Ancestry.com and decided to do another search for Georgia Fritz. Lo and behold…the actual digitized record of that second marriage comes up and there it is…Mother: Sarah Herrick. So the digital only record did not contain this information for some reason. I was thinking that she didn’t know her mother’s maiden name, so that’s why it wasn’t there.

You have to turn over every stone to find the information. I would never have known that Georgia had remarried without the ability to search online and find all records pertaining to her. Her death date would have been a mystery as well, not knowing that she died with another last name.

And finding out through further searching that Sarah had died in the 1860’s would explain the children living apart from their father.

Thankyou for finding Georgia Stoneburner My cousin Laura was the one looking for her and also her daughter Lynny. Laura passed away a few years ago and she is very missed She was named after her gramma Laura Reinert who died and left three children Nellie (my mom) she was named after her Gramma NELlLIe STONEBURNER. From what you say Nellie And Georgia were sisters. I two looked at the census back many years ago and saw Nellie living with another family I wondered if it had something to do with the Indian war of 1885 as you probably know their mother Sarah was an Indian. Did your mom ever say if she was part Indian ? I can tell you this for a fact of a reliable source my gramma nellies daughter Doris said she smoked a pipe all day long and had thirteen children. She was the daughter of Fredrick Stoneburner and Sarah Herrick. You can emaile at sunnygirl47@att.net Any one with any information please let me know Anna